SecondDarkness

Riddleport

Riddleport is the third-largest city in Varisia and is a haven for pirates and sea-faring brigands, who find themselves far to the north of the Arch of Aroden. Teeming with criminals and rogues of all kinds, Riddleport is full of potential danger and hard-to-avoid intrigue. Also known as the City of Cyphers, Riddleport takes its name from the Cyphergate, a giant stone arch spanning the natural cove around which the city is built. It is covered on both sides with ancient Thassilonian symbols, although their exact meaning is unknown.

Riddleport at a Glance

Most of Riddleport's buildings are composed of wood-logs or planks-with multiple floors and steep, highpeaked roofs of wooden shingles. They are built in close quarters, and in some cases their wooden upper floors sag and lean together from the constantly sodden conditions. Stone fireplaces ward off the bitter winter cold and the chill that lingers in the fog-laden streets for much of the year, save for in high summer. During this two-month period, warmer air currents from the south bring a muggy, oppressive heat along with great black mosquitoes that breed in the nearby marshes. Many burn peat treated with incense in their hearths during these months to ward off the vermin with their thick smoke.

The major streets of Riddleport are cobbled, often becoming rain-slick cataracts during the wet seasons. Cobbles are often missing or crushed by the incessant traffic, leaving gaping holes and ruts in even the most well-tended thoroughfares. Side streets tend to be relegated to muddy tracks that are swift to turn into stinking morasses of sucking mud and filth. Riddleport doesn't have much of a sewage system, and relies mainly on gutters along street edges to carry refuse to the river and harbor. One feature unique to the major streets are the frequent oil lamps mounted on iron poles that provide beacons of light in the benighted mists. These are set in sturdy hurricane lamps and burn thick, rancid-smelling oil from barrel-shaped reservoirs at the lamppost base-a byproduct and innovation of the Gas Works. These wavering lights give off illumination equal to a torch in even the foulest weather but are not well-tended; just over a third of them are out on any given night, in need of repairs or refueling.